Alfred GrandOrganic farmer, Vermigrand, Grand FarmEU Mission Board on Soil Health and Food, Austria

HORIZON EUROPE PROPOSED MISSION

CARING FOR SOIL IS CARING FOR LIFE

Research and Innovation needsAlfred Grand, Member of the Mission Board for Soil Health and Food.(Organic farmer and entrepreneur) This presentation is delivered by a member of a Horizon Europe Mission Board, which is an informal group of experts set up by the European Commission to provide advice for the identification and implementationof missions in the future Horizon Europe programme. The contents of the presentation do not represent the official views of the European Commission nor do they constitute a commitment of any kind on its behalf..

Mission has identified building blocks andsupporting actions to support these activities:

1. A cross-scale, inter and transdisciplinary R&I programme;

2. Co-creation of knowledge and testing of solutions in Living Laboratories and Lighthouses;

3. A consistent set of 8 indicators in a robust soil monitoring programme at EU and MS level equivalent to that for air, water and biodiversity;

4. Training, education, communication and citizen engagement embedded in all activities

Meet the mission building blocks:

A lot has been done already!

Knowledge exists within individual disciplines but there is hardly any integrated knowledge on soil health combining insights from various disciplines and sectors.

Advocating for new approach • Systemic approaches

• Interdisciplinarity

• Transdisciplinarity

• Contextualization

• Societal support

• Cross-scale integration

Committed to LL and LHsThe LH and LL will be the key structures to identifyresearch and innovation gaps, develop systemsapproaches and integrated disciplines, incooperation with practitioners, to find solutions thatare ready to be used by other practitioners andcommunicated to citizens at large.

Majority of projects should use these structures, orcollaborate with them.

LLs and LHs are not the only approach to R&I, andtherefore flexibility will be needed, e.g. when addressingtrans-national and global research, EU level policies orsoil health monitoring.

The two fundamental dimensions:Research which is focused on SOIL HEALTH:what is a healthy soil and which indicators thresholdsmake sense in each context.

Research which addresses the DRIVERS of soil health:soil management and the drivers affecting thismanagement, and requiring social sciences. It includesbehaviour analysis of land managers, understanding thecurrent barriers and opportunities which surround asystem change, most efficient mechanisms to supporttransition to sustainable land use, adaptation of advisoryservices to different farm and forest structures andfactors that lead to success of existing best practices.

Priorities for R&I:P1: Integration and uptake of current knowledge

Data platforms

Link data

Identify mechanisms that constrain implementation

Promotion of implementation through Lighthouses

Improvement of extension and advisory services

Priorities for R&I:P2: Accelerating Innovation in technologies and practices

Living labs, cocreation

New design of incentives, markets, financial, regulations and policy tools

Innovation in technological projects

Design new forms of collective actions at landscape scale

Priorities for R&I:P3: Towards global resilience through circular eco-nomy and adaptation of food and biomass systems

Development of foot printing toolsDevelopment of cooperation Co-creation of new market mechanismsMeasuring the influences of agricultural practicesPromotion of shorter value chains and circular economyDevelopment of supportive policies and incentivesCreate communication, engagement mechanismsCo-design models towards more sustainable food production-consummation-waste production

Priorities for R&I:P4: Next generation monitoring and surveillance programmes

Creation of pan-EU approach for setting standards for soil health

Improvement of national soil health monitoring

Provision of data into open data platforms

Modelling of platforms

What are your thoughts on the

Research and Innovation needs for

the Mission Soil health and food?

#MissionSoil#EUmissions #HorizonEU

http://ec.europa.eu/mission-soil

Thank you!

Useful links

• EU mission Caring for soil is caring for life (mission report)https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/4ebd2586-fc85-11ea-b44f-01aa75ed71a1/language-en/format-PDF/source-159637857

• Video on the Mission on Soil health and food https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53bbzE2IpKc&feature=emb_logo

• Mission report handover to the European Commission (EU R&I Days)https://youtu.be/oAG5-CQIOoc

• Soil mission session (EU R&I Days)https://research-innovation-days-conference.online/hubs/mission

• On a mission to save our soils - the EU's plan to rebuild the land (Futuris episode, euronews)https://www.euronews.com/2020/09/21/on-a-mission-to-save-our-soils-the-eu-s-plan-to-rebuild-the-land

EIP-AGRI workshopShaping the EU mission

‘Caring for soil is caring for life’Online 20-21 October 2020

All information of the workshop is available on www.eip-agri.eu

on the event webpage https://ec.europa.eu/eip/agriculture/en/event/

eip-agri-workshop-shaping-eu-mission-soil

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